


and the maid with trembling hands knows what to say

by greenlily



Category: Thursday's Children - Rumer Godden
Genre: Angst, Artists, Ballet, Betrayal, Canon-Compliant Original Characters, Gen, Guilt, complicated power dynamics between teacher and student, mentions of past suicidal ideation, tortured metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5434676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenlily/pseuds/greenlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>there is a crack<br/>a crack<br/>in everything<br/>that's how the light gets in</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the maid with trembling hands knows what to say

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



"Ruth?" Lucy knocks on her door. "Sorry, but Graham's on the phone. You said I was to wake you if ever he rang you here."

Ruth's day has been long and difficult, class followed by rehearsals followed by meetings. It had ended in what had been described as a small party when she was commanded to it ("Just a bit of a thing, Ruth, you needn't act as though it's only you who's got early classes"). The party, in Graham's studio after the day's last rehearsal, had ended up as yet another meeting, only with soft little canapes and weak punch on offer, and too many eyes pretending not to watch which offers she accepted. 

November is like this every year. Ruth and Lucy and the two girls from the Royal Theatre orchestra who share the flat with them are all drowning in rehearsals and out of the house more often then they're in it. Flats this near the theatre aren't easily found, and it's only because Lucy and Ariane are willing to share a room that the four of them can afford this one. 

Tonight is dark for the orchestra, and Lucy--cozily anonymous in the _corps_ \--hadn't been bidden to Graham's small not-a-party. Ruth had come home to find all three of her flatmates, plus two of Liz's admirers from the cello section, draped over the sofa and the squashy old armchairs. They had greeted her enthusiastically, had offered her a chair and one of her own tea mugs filled with cider liberally doctored from the bottle one of the cellists had brought.

She had been on the verge of saying no. But it had been warm, lighted and warm, not the burning gaze of the stage lights nor yet the crisp chill of Graham's studio, and in the end she had said yes.

And it had been nice. It truly had. They don't often ask her, Liz and Ariane don't--when it's just the four of them in the flat, yes, but not when they bring their friends around. And musicians, like dancers, are happy to talk about their work to someone who understands it without wanting to take it away from them. It had been easy.

In the end, Ruth had stayed awake far too late, and sleep had claimed her like drowning. She swims back to as much alertness as she can manage, now, wraps herself in her mother's old blue dressing gown with the mended elbows, and goes out into the kitchen. Lucy is holding out the phone ready for her.

"Hello, Graham." She clears her throat and begins again. "Sorry to take so long."

"It's all right." Graham Keswick, Choreographic Artist in Residence with Her Majesty's Ballet, can be kind when it suits him. Ruth knows, from experience, that it mostly suits him when he is feeling guilty.

"We went on talking a bit, after you left," he continues, confirming her suspicions. When she had left Graham's studio, the not-a-party had been winding down. Only Graham and Anthea, and Robert Girardot, had still been there. Robert is some sort of drama scholar and has been taken on as a ‘consultant’ for the new ballet, their ballet, about which Graham had promised that nothing would be decided without her.

She takes a deep breath. "And what did you decide? When you went on talking?" It comes out more bitter than she meant it. 

"No one made you leave, you know." Not letting it pass. 

"I know. I'm sorry." Ruth runs a hand backwards through her hair. Her head aches, all the time, a little, from the weight of the coronet braids. "Did Robert have any suggestions?"

"Nothing really new." Graham chuckles and it turns into a yawn. "Long day. He agrees with you about the Rose." Then, "Anthea did mention something." Not laughing, now. "What happened between Doone and his sister?”

* * * * * * * *

After she had left Queen's Chase, Lucy and Ann had come to see her, at home and then at the school Mrs. Challoner had recommended. Neither of them had known quite what to say, at first. Ruth had been able to see them considering, and then discarding, topic after topic of conversation. Finally, she'd asked for news of the Company--and that was how she'd heard that Anthea Dean had announced she would be leaving Her Majesty's Ballet at the end of the season.

"None of us know why," Ann had said, sipping her cocoa. "She's going to America, to be a guest artist in the New York City Ballet. Which, I mean, it's not as if it weren't a good company, but, who would ever leave..." She'd broken off, and Lucy had quickly changed the subject.

Ruth had not, honestly, expected to see Anthea again. But then there had been the day, well into the Teacher's Course, when Ruth had been running a rehearsal of students in their first Senior year--six girls and Doone Penny. She had been vaguely aware that some visitors had walked past her, but she hadn't seen who it was until the rehearsal was over. And then, outside the rehearsal room, there was Anthea Dean, greeting her as warmly as if they'd been in the Company together for years, introducing her new friends and the tall fair man next to her.

"Graham Keswick," he'd said, shaking Ruth's hand. And then, with authority, "That's a fine batch of students you've got there. You're going to have trouble with the boy, though."

Four years have passed. Graham and Anthea are married. Ruth has been Graham's apprentice since before she finished her Teachers' Course, has learned to read a story through the lens of how she would tell it without words, has learned to read a person through the lens of what they aren't telling, has learned that not all handsome male choreographers are Yuri Koszorz. 

She has learned that Graham has a sharp eye for stories. She has learned that his observational skills are no less sharp when turned on people. 

She has learned that Graham's first impression of a dancer is nearly always correct. They have, in fact, had trouble with Doone--not with him, himself, but there has always been the question of what to do with him. 

Take him into the Company straight out of the Senior School, yes--and do what? Put him into the _corps_ , as his age and not-yet-filled-out height would suggest, yes--and watch him struggle not to stand out too much, not to draw focus--watch him alone in a practice room where his leaps and extensions look like someone's tied him up and he's fighting his way free--watch him hold back his power, day in and day out, and wonder how long he can go on like this.

Graham had watched him, and watched Ruth watching him, and had said nothing. And then, a week later, he had told Ruth that she was going to be his assistant choreographer for the Company's new ballet.

Ruth had stared at him. "Me?" The Company's ranking of choreographers was less formal than the structure of its dancers, but what Graham had suggested was outside even the looser hierarchy of apprenticeship and progression.

"You," Graham had said steadily. "I think you know a thing or two about transformation, don't you, Ruth?"

 

* * * * * * * *

She does know. 

There is a child's Harlequin mask on the wall of her mother’s studio.

There is a shoebox full of letters on the top shelf of her bedroom closet.

There was a razor behind the mattress of her bed in the dormitory.

The Company’s new ballet is a story about how the thing you love best can hurt you the most, and she should never have gone anywhere near it.

* * * * * * * *

“It was years ago,” Ruth says automatically. She’s gotten used to saying it, in answer to any number of questions. It means _it’s over, I’m not that person any more, I’m someone you can rely on, it's past, it was long ago in another country._

“Ruth.” His voice is gentle, now. “Ruth, this is a promotion. For both of them.” 

Crystal will be dancing the featured and fiendishly difficult role of the Firebrand, the last in the series of transformations before the hero is freed from the spell that has held him captive. Graham is also set on Crystal’s understudying the leading role, the heroine, who breaks the Fairy Queen’s power over the hero by refusing to let go of him as he is turned first into a serpent, then a bird, then a wolf—Water, Air, Earth and finally Fire.

Ruth sees it, then, sees the shape of Graham’s unease, the shadows lurking in the corner of the room. If Crystal steps into the leading role, the short duet between the heroine and the Rose will be the first scene Doone and Crystal have danced together.

(That isn’t true, of course. In that other country, there was a bare stage with a potted plant, there was a proud old man at a rickety piano, there was a Harlequin mask and there were forget-me-nots pinned in a girl’s golden hair and there was the sound of a tiny mouth-organ faltering into silence.)

As if he’s reading her mind, Graham continues, “You’ve known them both since you were all children. And you were,” he pauses, “at school with them. When Doone was cast in _The Dream_ and then he wasn’t. Anthea says there was talk, in the Company, that his sister had something to do with that.”

She doesn't like where she thinks this is leading. "Graham, what is it you're asking me to do?"

"Not betray a confidence," he says, too quickly. "I don't want you to tell me what happened. I'm appalled that the Company gossiped about a pair of kids like that. " He coughs a bit. "Anthea and I had words over it, actually. Never mind.

"I'm asking you to make certain, absolutely, that it's possible for Crystal to share a stage with her brother. Yes, I know, they've been doing it, but that was Doone in the _corps_ and Crystal as a Soloist. It's time for them both to move on.

"If they can't, if she can't, then the Company's not big enough to hold both of them."

* * * * * * * *

Ruth spots Crystal alone at a corner table in the canteen two days later.

They haven't been a particularly comfortable two days, especially as there's no one she can tell about it. Ordinarily, when there's something happening within the Company that's too sensitive to talk over with Lucy or Doone, Ruth will write it out and post it off to wherever Charles is stationed at the moment. However, when she thinks about this, thinks about telling Charles what she's agreed to do, something in her stomach flips unpleasantly. She hasn't written him yet. 

"Can I?" She looks at the empty chair across from Crystal and raises her eyebrows.

Crystal waves at the chair. "Of course. Sit. I'm nearly done with this." There are papers spread over half the table. Some of them look like copies of press clippings, and at least one looks like a blank application. Ruth looks away before she can be caught staring.

"No, it's all right." Crystal creases the fold of an envelope, pastes it shut, and sweeps the papers into a pile. "It's nothing very interesting, just arrangements for another ward visit after Christmas. They want me to send along some news so they can tell the kids what to expect beforehand."

Everyone had whispered and muttered when the news trickled through the _corps_. "It isn't as though she had any spare time," Lucy pointed out. "She hardly ever leaves the practice studio as it is. I don't know when she manages to _sleep_."

Ruth hadn't been surprised. She remembers Crystal's family, has often met her oldest brother Will and his kind, sensible wife who wears her hair in a braided coronet. Ruth knows about Maisie, golden-haired Maisie, Will and Kate's elder daughter, born the year Crystal went to the Senior School. Maisie spent most of the fifth year of her life in the wards at Great Ormond Street, some sort of lung infection that had come and gone and come again until she was faded to a shadow.

Maisie is well now, more or less, although when she grows older and stronger there may be other treatments. Crystal and Doone don't enter their mother's house except at Christmas, but they go every week to have tea with Will and Kate and Maisie and her baby sister. And, several times a year, Crystal and some of the students from the Senior School pack up a few costumes and go to perform some simplified dances and panto scenes for the children in the London hospitals.

Ruth thinks that Graham either doesn't know anything, or else he knows far too much.

Because, of course, it's exactly what someone _would_ do, good works, if she were trying to persuade herself that she was no longer the person who had done something awful. Or if she were trying to persuade other people. If she knew that there was talk, about things she had done when she was young, and if she were trying to show that she'd changed.

 _Damn_ Graham, anyways, him and his sharp eyes. Question everything, yes, look for the empty spaces between what's being said. Find the door that won't open, and don't leave it alone until it lets you pass.

"Ruth?" Crystal's looking at her. "Are you all right?"

"Yes." She smiles. "Tired. That extra rehearsal this morning for the Rats was like pulling teeth."

Crystal had been the first to come and see her at home, after she'd left school. At first, Ruth had thought she wanted to brag. She had known when she left that Crystal would dance Clara, would do it beautifully and would make everyone wonder what Yuri had ever been thinking of to give it to pale little Ruth Sherrin in the first place. She had expected a thousand tiny shards of glass flung in her face, cheerful gossip about all the bright and shiny things that were happening to Crystal Penny now that she had finally, finally gotten her spotlight.

Instead, Crystal had been--not quiet, but strange. She had chatted about schoolwork, about pop stars, about the _weather_. Nothing about dancing, nothing about the Company, and absolutely nothing about Clara. Ann and Lucy, when they'd come, had avoided it for fear of hurting Ruth. Crystal, Ruth had seen at once, couldn't talk of _The Nutcracker_ without hurting herself.

It had passed, eventually. They can talk about the ballet now when the Company performs it, about Crystal's solos and Ruth's struggles with the _corps_. 

They have never spoken of that first _Nutcracker_ , of Crystal's pain and whatever caused it, or of her victory. Of other things in their shared past, yes. There are three people who can press Ruth to speak of that other country, by rights of having accompanied her on her journey away from it. There is Doone, and there is far-away Charles on the other end of a shoebox full of letters. And, sometimes, there is Crystal.

Now, across the table, Crystal rolls her eyes. "Better you than me. I don't know how you can be so patient. I'd've torn strips off Masha and Caroline the first time they came out with that stupid giggle." She takes a sip of her tea and makes a face. "Ugh. I need a fresh cup. I'll be right back."

Ruth stares at her hands. She thinks--she is almost sure--that she can get through this conversation without making an enemy of Crystal all over again. She thinks it has been long enough, they have understood each other well enough. And yet. 

_("We can't go on hating each other."_

_"If we do, we do.")_

Crystal comes back, carrying a new cup of tea and two oranges. "Here." She hands one to Ruth. "I haven't seen you around much lately."

"Graham's got me in meetings every day about the new ballet." Ruth digs a thumbnail into the peel of her orange. The scent sprays across her face. "He's taking this apprenticeship thing seriously."

"You shouldn't be talking to a Company member about Graham's business," says Crystal, half-smiling.

And there it is, there's the opening Ruth needs. She doesn't want it, she will wish afterwards she hadn't taken it, but that is a problem for afterwards. She takes a deep breath. "Actually, Graham's asked me to discuss something with you."

She sees the thoughts cross Crystal's face--is this good news? Bad news? Secrets?--and knows she's hit the right tone. A business discussion, only business, a choreographer talking Company business with a member of the Company who has the right to know whatever it is.

Crystal finally settles on an expression of polite curiosity. "Go on."

"The new ballet." This is the easy part. "You've heard that Doone's to dance the Rose."

"Of course I have." Crystal smiles, a real smile, nothing sharp in it. Graham is an idiot. "He hasn't said much about it, but I know he's absolutely over the moon."

"And you?"

Crystal's smile vanishes. "What _about_ me?"

"Crystal." Ruth makes herself put the orange down on the table, makes herself meet Crystal's eyes. "Did you know that the Company knew? About what happened with _The Dream_?"

Crystal doesn't flinch. "Yes. I mean, I didn't know when it happened. But afterwards. Miss--Ennis told me." Ruth knows that neither Crystal nor Doone has ever grown used to calling their teacher by her first name, even now when they are all Company members together. "She said I needed to know. To be prepared in case ever it came up again. Is that what Graham sent you to ask me?"

Ruth nods.

To her surprise, Crystal’s face softens. "It's another lesson, you know."

"What is?"

"Does Graham know? About how you came to leave Queen's Chase?"

"Well, I mean, it's in my Senior School file, and I suppose they let him read that. He is a teacher, of a sort." Ruth tries for a laugh. It comes out sour, acidic, bitter orange. "And I suppose Anthea's told him. Whatever she thinks she knows, anyways."

"But you haven't ever said anything. So he thinks you don't talk about those years. To anyone. Ever. Yes?"

"...Yes."

Ruth does not like admitting that Graham assumes (she has allowed him to assume, given him the right to assume) that she tells him everything except the things she can't tell anyone.

"He thought you’d hate doing it, and he made you do it anyways." Crystal takes another sip of tea. "He's teaching you that he'll use you to get what he wants."

“It’s not...” Ruth trails off. Crystal is not stupid, has never been stupid.

“It is.” Crystal is still watching her. “This is about Janet, isn’t it? Graham wants me as understudy, but if I did it’d mean dancing the Rose Duet with Doone. And he sent you to find out if I could do that, or if I’d find a way to wreck it.”

“He did.” She had thought she would feel better when it was out in the open. Surely she will. Any minute now.

“If I said I’m not that person any more, would Graham believe me?” Crystal looks at Ruth steadily. “Would _you_ believe me?”

“Yes,” Ruth says immediately

And that’s it, isn’t it. She and Crystal are not friends, but they know each other better than either of them knows anyone else. 

Transformation. Crystal had thrown herself into her work, after the long-ago _Nutcracker_ , had become the sort of dancer who loses herself in the dance. People who had not liked her had said that the first taste of fame and recognition had turned her head so that she’d do anything for more. Kinder people had said that it was Yuri’s example, Anthea’s, the experience of working with the full Company and seeing how far she had yet to go.

Something happened, Ruth thinks. Something hurt her. She threw herself into her work, like jumping into a river, because work drowns out pain.

“All right.” Crystal rubs her forehead. She looks very tired, all of a sudden. “Run and tell him you’ve sounded me out. Doone’s perfectly safe with me.” She sweeps her orange peel into a little heap on the table. 

“Crystal. Crystal, I’m…”

“Yes, I know, you’re sorry.” Crystal’s voice is quiet. “It’s all right. I brought it on myself. This is what Ennis meant. What she wanted me to be prepared for.”

 _No_ , thinks Ruth. _Ennis Glyn warned you to arm yourself against the malice of strangers. She never thought of warning you that it's the people and things closest to you that can do the most damage._

“This is wrong,” Ruth hears herself say. “It shouldn’t be like this.”

There is something very old in Crystal’s eyes. “It’s always been like this. I used to be so jealous of you, because you couldn’t see what it was like, and I couldn’t stop seeing it. I had a fight with my mother once and told her I wished I was like you.” A short, bitter laugh. 

“No,” says Ruth faintly.

“Yes. Like you, and like Doone. Nothing ever touched you, either of you, not any of the little stupid ways people were horrible to each other. You were protected.”

“Doone, maybe. Not me.” Ruth knots her fingers together on the table in front of her. “I suppose it looked like that.” 

“Not any more.” Crystal reaches across the table and puts her hand lightly over both of Ruth's. Her skin is warm from the tea. “Look. Doone told me, once, that he’d stick by me, no matter what, even if I was horrid. I was, and he did. 

“Do you think you and I might try sticking by each other for a bit? Even if I’m horrid? Even if we’re both horrid?”

And somewhere, deep in the back of Ruth’s soul, in the other country where the storm never stops raging, a door begins slowly to swing open.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set roughly eight years after the end of the book, which puts it somewhere in the late 1980s. References to the organization of Her Majesty's Ballet are based on the Company's present-day structure. I have taken considerable liberties in this area, particularly with regards to Guest Artist status and the training of choreographers. 
> 
> The title is from "Pavanne" by Richard Thompson. The summary quote is from "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen. The story also contains some quotes from the canon.
> 
> Special thanks to my Beta To Be Named Later, without whom this story would have even more sentence fragments.


End file.
